Perhaps Obama should quit the presidency and go into fundraising. Just think - we could probably have a cure for AIDS or some cancers if he put his prodigious fundraising ability to better use than trying to hang on to the White House.

Politico:

Bracing for a half-billion-dollar onslaught of outside GOP cash in 2012, President Barack Obama's advisers are quietly working to bring back together the major donor base that produced a record-breaking fundraising haul in his first run for president.

In the past few months, Democratic National Committee aides have contacted several of Obama's earliest financial backers to brainstorm about when and where to host the first money-raising events. Several big donors said they expect the Obama 2012 operation to open its doors this spring, with a string of fundraisers to generate the early cash needed to rebuild the president's high-tech campaign operation.

[...]

The one piece of Obama's fundraising apparatus that has been managed closely since his inauguration is his online, small donor base. That list of supporters has been maintained by Organizing for America, which was a wing of the 2008 campaign that moved into the Democratic National Committee.

Hari Sevugan, a DNC spokesman, would not comment on the size of that list today. However, DNC campaign finance reports suggest it remains potent. The committee raised $16 million in October - and 97 percent of the contributions were from small donors.

But a billion dollar presidential re-election bid is unlikely to be launched or sustained for long exclusively with small donors. Even in 2008, Obama's eye-popping online giving was matched with larger donations generated by roughly 700 big and small bundlers.

The article points out that Obama may have a hard time raising the billion because of disappointment among his large contributors. But when push comes to shove - and when those Dem whales see how much Karl Rove and the GOP will be raising from outside sources - they will eventually pony up. Whether Obama reaches a billion dollars is iffy but he certainly has the team in place to do it.